I remember all of the stories you told me as a child before you 'passed away'. When I would be feeling down, I'd remember you telling me a story and I would cheer up immediately. It may have only been because I would remember the way you had look and the way you sounded when telling it. I loved every story that you told me because they were unreal.

Or, maybe it was because they were all about Gran Pulse.

I haven't told your secret to anyone because if I did, I would be with you right now.

This is a story that takes place long before the six became l'Cie. In fact, it was a few hundred years before Vanille and Fang completed their first focus. It all starts with a clan within the village Oerba on Gran Pulse.

The clan is known as the Kai. The people of this clan has a certain medical condition. You see, their hearts fail them once they turned eighteen and they die hours afterwards, which is why they have kids at such a young age. One 'man' was able to survive hundreds of years because of one good deed he did.

He saved a fal'Cie from being killed by monsters that were attacking it.

This eighteen-year old wondered off from where his village was at and saw the fighting take place. He stood between the attacker and the attacked and managed to calm the monsters down enough that they fled from fal'Cie once they realized what they had done. To repay the 'man', the fal'Cie asked him what he would like in return for what he had done for him.

"To live," the 'man' answered wondrously. "To raise a family with someone I love and watch my children become adults."

The fal'Cie was impressed by his decision and willingly granted his wish. To do so, the fal'Cie placed a Gran Pulsian mark over the man's heart. With this mark he gain the ability to wield magic, have incredible strength, to weaken his enemies, to strengthen his own abilities, to guard against the enemy attack, and to heal himself if he gets injured.

The man lived over five hundred years but only aged less than ten years. By that time, his clan was 'extinct' because of the medical condition and because of the war against Cocoon. The man had wanted to help with the fight, but he also knew that if he did, he wouldn't be able to complete his other Focus. The fal'Cie that gave him his powers asked the man to find a way on to Cocoon and see if he would be treated any different there.

The man succeeded with the request a couple years later when he managed to get to a place called Bohdum, a beach-side town where it was not that far from the country side. Everyone treated him like he has been there his whole life and he was gratefully accepted into the Guardian Corp within two weeks. In this town, he fell in love with a light pink haired woman that was strong opinionated but also sweet. The citizens of Bohdum would claim he only fell in love with her because of her looks, but he would deny it immediately.

However, that was the case for the woman.

Good-looking man falls in love with her, she uses him for the money he would get for being in the Guardian Corp, they get married, have a kid, and then she would divorce him and take the child and money with her. A simple plan like that could not fail.

Yet, it did.

The man and the woman ended up getting married within the next few months and the woman got pregnant with a child. The woman thought the child would be a boy, but the man swore up and down that the child will be a girl. Not that he would tell anyone, but back on Gran Pulse he was able to guess the gender of the baby the woman of the clan carried and he was always right.

His reputation was still intact because the child did turn out to be a girl. She had beautiful pink hair almost as light as her mother's, and aqua eyes almost as pale as her father's. Claire was the child's first name and she took her last name from her mother, Farron. She was more beautiful than her mother and father combined, yet only the man loved her with all his heart.

Over three years has passed and Claire had just turned three years old when a particular incident happened. The woman found out the man was from Gran Pulse and was a l'Cie. After screaming at the man for over an hour and him taking it, she left the house and went to closest bar she could find to drink away her anger.

The man was left in a hysterical fit.

He laid on his bed with his breathing irregular as he cried his sorrows. The fact that his mark was burning away at his heart did not help. He clutched his chest, the place where the mark was at, and begged for a miracle to stop his hurting.

A miracle laid right beside him.

His three year old daughter heard her father crying and wanted to see what was wrong. When Claire came in the room, she noticed the place underneath her father's hand was glowing, so she did the first thing she could think of. She climbed onto the enormous bed, climbed over to father, and laid right next to him, where her head was resting on his heart.

That simple act of love was enough to stop his mark from glowing and to make his breathing back to normal. The man held his baby girl in his arms as the two fell asleep in a peaceful slumber.

The mother had gotten pregnant by a random person from the bar who was killed by a monster less than two weeks later. The mother came back to her husband and daughter and practically begged for them to forgive her. Little Claire, who didn't understand any of it, immediately denied the apology but the man agreed. He also promised that he would raise the baby the mother was pregnant with as his own child.

And he did.

The woman's second daughter, Serah, was a spitting image of her; same pink colored hair and a darker blue color in her eyes. Serah had no idea the man wasn't her father by how much love, attention, and affection he gave her. However, he loved Claire more which showed with the stories he told them at night. The father told Serah stories about Cocoon while he told Claire stories about Gran Pulse.

One night when the man was telling Claire the story of a Gran Pulsian fal'Cie being attacked by monster, Claire asked a question that had been on her mind through out the whole story; was he the man that saved the fal'Cie. Feeling a weight being lifted off his shoulder, the man confessed his secrets to his baby girl. Claire listened to his explanation with fascination and asked if he would continue telling her stories about him being a l'Cie. Her father laughed at her excitement and suggested that she come up with a story to tell him.

The next night Claire went into great detail in telling the story of a knight:

This knight was the partner of a beautiful woman who trusted the knight more than words could describe. Every battle they fought together and they always had each other's back. However, one day the woman disappeared and the knight went berserk; he couldn't properly understand what he was doing or who he was fighting against. This became evident when the woman appeared and fought against him so he could 'regain control' over his mind and body. They fought side by side against an enemy that wanted to destroy the world and was unable to defeat him.

The woman fell asleep for over five hundred years, for she had turned into a crystal. The knight, however, couldn't bare the thought of her leaving again, but he had to move on. Eventually he had passed on from the world, but was reincarnated into a creature. This creature was a beautiful white Chocobo with a patch of green on his body and a black marking over one of his eyes. 'Angel of Valhalla' was the name given to the mythical creature and the villagers created a legend that he only appeared when the world is about to end. The Angel will allow no one to ride him for the only one he trusted was the woman he fought with.

One day the Angel had gotten injured by a behemoth. The woman, who was no longer crystal, appeared and killed the monster that attacked the Angel. The Angel wouldn't take any medicine from anyone, unless it was from the woman. So, the woman gave the Chocobo the medicine the villagers made and traveled across the country to find him a healing flower him to eat. The woman did all she could to heal the Angel and, when it became night, slept next to him in hopes of him feeling better the next day. When she woke up, he was standing at full height with his wings fluttering happily. The two ended up fighting with each other and the woman figured out he was the knight she fought with so many ages ago.

Claire's father laughed at how specific she had made the story. By the way she told it, Claire made it sound like she was the woman in the story. Claire blushed when her father pointed it out and admitted she would love for that to happen to her.

As the years passed the man taught Claire everything he knew about Gran Pulse without Claire's mother knowing. Every time they would be in the middle of a lesson, the mother would appear with Serah at her side and the man would immediately changed the subject to something about Cocoon. One day Claire had wondered how the fighting styles of Cocoon were different from the ones on Gran Pulse. To answer her question, the man taught her how to fight both ways and she was a natural at both. She managed to combine both styles into one, but those who saw her thought it was some kind of new Cocoon style her father taught her.

The father and daughter duo loved each other so much that nothing could be used to express it. They were each others world. They revolved around each other, until that day-

The day the man was poisoned when he was on duty.

He had been on simple recon mission when a dog-like monster had attacked him. In the dog-monster's claws were venom that had no cure to it yet. Instead of being sent to a hospital, the man was sent home to where he laid, broken, on his bed. Claire stayed by his side until he parted from the world. He made sure to tell Serah that he loved her with all his heart. His last words were to Claire, who he told to always protect her sister and never forget who she is.

Before he could fully die, he heard the voice of the fal'Cie that he had saved in his mind. The fal'Cie told him that the man had completed his focus. He will be turned to crystal from the inside and his mark would disappear so no one will know that he was a l'Cie. The man died with a smile on his face, thanking the fal'Cie as his final thoughts.

The man was Oerba Kai Anima, named after the fal'Cie Anima in hopes that it would bring him luck. The fal'Cie that 'gave' him immortality was none other than Anima-

Who let his favorite l'Cie's daughter live.